


that is eternity.

by TheUnmonitoredTramp



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Hanahaki Disease, Not exactly though, canon-compliant up until 2x08, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:35:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24322885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheUnmonitoredTramp/pseuds/TheUnmonitoredTramp
Summary: She's always fucking hated flowers.___A Hanahaki AU where person A doesn't love person B, so person A suffers from the disease.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	that is eternity.

She’s always fucking hated flowers.

Whether it be having had the responsibility to remember watering her mother’s roses for her when she’d gone on a business trip - which always lasted longer than announced (being your boss’ favorite sex toy usually does that) - or having to ignore the smell that everyone pretends to love but really just fucking hates; flowers are the worst of God’s endless creations.

So really, it shouldn’t be that surprising that they’re the thing to finally kill her.

Still, it would be nicer if they weren’t.

___

Eve Polastri, MI5 agent. Sounds kind of cool, doesn’t it? 

Well, it wasn’t. Not unless she made it cool.

So, here she was: in a hospital bathroom waiting for the only witness of her most recent murder case - which she was pretty sure was part of a chain of multiple assassinations, not that anyone would listen to what she had to say, thank you very much - to wake up so she could interrogate her on what the woman has seen when her husband was stabbed to death.

It was pretty impressive, actually. A stab in the thigh. So minimal that even the victim hadn’t noticed until it was too late. Not that she would say that to the witness, his girlfriend (she hoped).

That woman was pretty upset. Not even the translator could make out what she was saying. Dom could, though. Ale decha, he had said. Well, Eve just hoped that he could help her out tonight, as well. Even though, dragging him away from Bridge probably wouldn’t hurt him…

She was pulled out of her reverie when the door to a toilet stall opened behind her. The woman exiting the stall was captivating.

Her hair was dark blonde, maybe honey. It was tied back. She was slim, about 25, 26. She had very delicate features. Her eyes were sort of cat-like. Wide but alert. Her lips were full. She had a long neck, high cheekbones. Her skin was smooth and bright. She had a lost look in her eye that was both… direct and also chilling. She was totally focussed, yet almost entirely inaccessible.

What the blonde seemed to be focussed on, though, was Eve herself. Her eyes followed every single one of the detective’s movements. From the way her arms rose up in an attempt to tame her wild hair to the way her fingers tangled in the strands to gather them in a ponytail - through the mirror Eve could see that the woman’s eyes were on her.

“Are you alright?” she asked, albeit softly as to not scare her away.

Although, that might have made no difference, if the way she suddenly averted her eyes was any indication. She seemed so shaken that she even forgot to wash her hands in the hurry she’s been in to exit the bathroom.

“Wear it down.” was apparently her form of Sorry, I’ve been staring at you for a pretty long time, don’t mind me. Have a nice day! because not a second later, the door shut and Eve found herself alone in the bathroom.

Shrugging it off, she entered the toilet stall, locked the door, pulled down her pants along with her panties and relieved herself. Grabbing the toilet paper, she felt a particularly intense scratching in her throat which soon developed into a really, really bad coughing fit that had her gasping for air all the while holding her hands in front of her mouth to catch whatever it was that was trying to escape her.

The fit seemed to subside and when she felt safe enough that it wouldn’t come back, she lifted her hands from her face when she saw a flower petal on the toilet paper that is now crumpled in her hands.

It looked like a… red camellia? Which was weird. More than weird. Not only because this flower could only be found in Asia but also because… how the fuck was a petal of it here? In this toilet stall? On Eve Polastri’s crumpled piece of toilet paper?

And okay, she admitted that she probably should have been more aware of the strangeness of this moment. In hindsight, she now knew that she should have been more concerned.

But can you really blame her for forgetting when the first thing she found after exiting the bathroom was multiple dead doctors (nurses?) and officers and her most valuable witness with a slit throat?

___

Turns out, flowers grew in her lungs.

Well, a vine, to be more precise. And it didn’t seem to stop growing there anytime soon. 

The doctor told her her condition was called “Hanahaki Disease”. One google search later, not even the half empty bottle of wine sitting on the floor right beside her could cheer her up: terminal. There did seem to be an opportunity to get the vine surgically removed. This procedure would wipe all memories of the person you’re unrequitedly in love with, though, which seemed to be the reason most people would rather get themselves killed by this disease rather than forget the most important person in their lives.

Eve wouldn’t be that stupid. Although there did seem to be one problem: she didn’t love anyone who didn’t love her back, did she?  
Niko probably didn’t love her anymore, but she stopped loving him a long time ago. With him, it was always about comfort and doing what was expected of her. So, he wasn’t causing it…..

While pondering, her thoughts drifted to Villanelle… They always did, to be honest. She was such an interesting person with an incredible amount of layers to her personality. No amount of eloquence could even begin to cover what the woman meant to Eve.

But it wasn’t love.

Infatuation, sure. Obsession, definitely. But not love. It never was.

It’s not like she didn’t know that Villanelle was gorgeous, beautiful even. Or that she had the most fascinating mind to be in. Eve did have a perfectly functioning pair of eyes, ears and an impeccable mind, after all. But it wasn’t love.

___

Right, the flowers.

Even though the bathroom encounter was her first experience with coughing up a flower petal, it sure as hell wasn’t her last. It wasn’t the worst either.

There was this encounter with Villanelle, when she stepped out of the car Elena and her used to save Frank with. They stood face to face. And right after Villanelle had gone, she felt it. Seconds later, her hand was sprinkled with petals of an anemone.

When they had lain on Villanelle’s bed in Paris, she had this unknown feeling of a clear throat. No signs of her disease.   
Then she stabbed Villanelle. She “ruined the moment” (not for the first time - as she would learn later on). Villanelle was gone now and the constricting feeling in her lungs (when did it spread that far?) was back. It was so sudden that she threw up on the floor. Yellow carnations.

After she slept with Hugo (yes, she knew, EW), she had to go to the bathroom or else he would have gotten a shitload of flowers in his face. Stargazer lilies.

These coughing (or vomit) fits seemed to not only vary in the types of flowers but also in their intensity. She thought her vomiting at least a dozen bouquets worth of yellow carnations’ petals in Villanelle’s flat had been the worst.

She knew nothing.

___

“You love me.”

A scratch in her throat. “No.”

“I love you.” And so the coughing fit began.

She was barely able to get out a second “No.”...

“I do.” She began to gag.

“You don’t…”, gag, “... understand what that is.”

“I do. You’re mine.” Hundreds of daffodils now lay on the ground, she couldn’t keep them in anymore.

And as Villanelle said something and Eve answered accordingly (she now couldn’t tell you what it was that they said exactly, trying to keep all the flowers inside was hard enough, thank you very much), she began to realize what was really happening. The vine wasn’t growing in her lungs because her love was unrequited, no. It was the opposite.

Villanelle suffered from unrequited love. Eve couldn’t give her what Villanelle herself was willing to give. And now she had to suffer.

The gunshot to her back (When did she even turn around?) was almost relieving. A most welcome distraction from the way a fucking plant was trying to destroy her from the inside out. No, not trying. Succeeding.

She was dying. She didn’t know how, but she could feel it. And she was sure (more than ever in her life) that it wasn’t the bullet lodged in her back that was going to kill her.

So yeah, she’s always fucking hated flowers.   
So really, it shouldn’t be that surprising that they’re the thing to finally kill her.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from this quote: "From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them at that is eternity." - Edvard Munch
> 
> All mentioned flowers and their meanings/symbolisms:  
> red camellia - desire, longing  
> anemone - anticipation  
> yellow carnations - rejection  
> stargazer lilies - fulfillment of dreams  
> daffodils - unrequited love
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! As this is my first fan fiction and English is not my first language, constructive criticism or general comments are deeply appreciated.  
> \- Dinah


End file.
